Several scholars have claimed that small-scale agriculture in which farmers sell goods to the local market has the potential to strengthen social ties and a sense of community, a phenomenon referred to as “civic agriculture.” Proponents see promise in the increase in the number of community supported agriculture programs, farmers markets, and other locally orientated distribution systems as well as the growing interest among consumers for buying locally produced goods. Yet others have suggested that these novel or reborn distribution mechanisms (...) are still primarily means of instrumental economic exchange and that optimistic characterizations of a renewed sense of community emerging from these practices are unfounded. This study provides an empirical assessment of the extent to which these community-based agriculture markets are associated with connection to community, volunteerism, and civic and political activities. In order to assess the relationship between civic agriculture and community engagement, we surveyed over 1,300 people in the Mid-Hudson region of New York State. The study design includes “civic agriculture participants” as the unit of analysis, defined as CSA farm members, shoppers at independent health food stores, and farmers market patrons. For comparison, a telephone survey of randomly selected residents of the region’s general population was also conducted. Unlike studies that focus solely on the perceptions of certain civic agriculture participants, by comparing the perceptions and behaviors of those engaged in a range of civic agriculture practices, we are able to identify the effects of different forms of participation. The results demonstrate higher levels of voluntarism and engagement in local politics among civic agriculture participants relative to the general population. In addition, we found variation among those engaged in different forms of civic agriculture, with those immersed in more socially embedded forms of exchange demonstrating greater community and political involvement. These findings lend empirical support to the civic agriculture thesis. (shrink)

Official Catholic opposition to contraception has long been portrayed as a stand that is based in antiquated doctrine and “out of touch” with society and its problems. In fact, Catholic arguments often have been less devoted to doctrine and more reflective of concerns for social justice and human rights. This was certainly the case in Latin America, as international birth control programs evolved in the mid to late 20th century. Programs were targeted at developing nations like those in Latin America (...) which were experiencing what was termed a “population explosion.” This article describes how, in this primarily Catholic region, Catholic authorities responded to popula- tion policy, arguing that overpopulation should not be considered the primary cause of economic strife, nor should birth control be promoted as the solution. (shrink)

For decades, the United States has supported the development of civil society in various places around the world. Promoted as integral to democracy, civil society projects have come to include religion and religious freedom as significant components. U.S. experts point to tolerance of all faiths and the presence of voluntary religious association as essential checks to state power and necessary to a free society. Because of its unique relationship with Cuba, the United States support of civil society there has addressed (...) religion in a way unlike that in other countries. This article examines very recent developments there, placing them in larger social and historical context of politics and church/state relations. (shrink)

One model for creating artificial consciousness is replicating every fine detail of the brain on computers and setting the model in motion. Consciousness has been experimentally demonstrated to be a much more fragmented experience than we think it to be, perhaps we only need snippets of ourselves to feel conscious. Perhaps consciousness is nothing less and nothing more than story, and all we need do to continue to feel conscious is maintain identity through computer‐based narrative. Applied nanotechnology has generated uncountable (...) applications in electronics, pharmacology, and materials engineering. The best approach to life extension and consciousness expansion might lie in our own marvelously complex and entire bodies, meshed with and augmented by tiny bionan machines that become a part of us, rather than the opposite vision of humans migrating into a machine substrate. (shrink)

This book explores how shamanic Daoist practices help cultivate the skills of an elicitive peaceworker. Author Kathleen McGoey uses embodied writing to describe her direct experiences with qigong and other meditation forms, and to explain the creation of inner peace that ultimately extends far beyond the individual. A trans-rational understanding of peace weaves together transpersonal interpretations of intuition with ancient Daoist wisdom. By relating the outcomes of such approaches to real world conflict transformation, McGoey proposes a practical personal consciousness (...) that strives for harmony with our's and others' environments. (Series: Masters of Peace - Vol. 9). (shrink)

Palliative Care Nursing: Caring for Suffering Patients explores the concept of suffering as it relates to nursing practice. This text helps practicing nurses and students define and recognize various aspects of suffering across the lifespan and within various patient populations while providing guidance in alleviating suffering. In addition, it examines spiritual and ethical perspectives on suffering and discusses how witnessing suffering impacts nurses' ability to assume the professional role. Further, the authors discuss ways nurses as witnesses to suffering can optimize (...) their own coping skills and facilitate personal growth. Rich in case studies, pictures, and reflections on nursing practice and life experiences, Palliative Care Nursing: Caring for Suffering Patients delves into key topics such as how to identify when a patient is suffering, whether they are coping, sources of coping facades, what to do to ease suffering, and how to convey the extent of suffering to members of the health care team.Palliative Care Nursing: Caring for Suffering Patients helps practicing nurses and students define and recognize various aspects of suffering across the lifespan and within various patient populations while providing guidance in alleviating suffering. (shrink)

Even though sign-systems are a crucial part of society, critical realism, as developed by Roy Bhaskar, does not yet have an adequate theory of signs and semiosis. The few suggestions that Bhaskar offers can be advanced through the semiotics of C.S. Peirce. In doing so, however, it becomes necessary to reconsider Bhaskar's ontological domains of the real, the actual, and the subjective, and expand the last domain into one of semiosis. This new understanding of ontological domains, incorporating Peirceian semiotics, provides (...) the basis for rethinking the ontology of society: the customary dyad structures/agents becomes the triad structures/agents/discourses, each of which possesses material, sociological, and meaningful aspects. (shrink)

Teilhard's words divided into a "Book of Hours" of eight days, according to Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Dark.

This article examines the relationship between an aspect of a firm’s corporate social responsibility, corporate community programs, and the effectiveness of its corporate political activity. Developing a conceptual model based on resource-based view of the firm, the authors argue that the mechanism linking a firm’s CCP to CPA mechanism is the effect of CCPs on the development of firm level resources. Specifically, the intensity of a firm’s CCPs enhances a firm’s human capital, organizational capital, and geographic resources, which in turn (...) improve the effectiveness of two key aspects of CPA: information and constituency-building political strategies. This linkage of CCPs to CPA effectiveness may be particularly relevant when the firm faces unfavorable political markets. (shrink)

One of the reasons for the disappearance of beauty in the artistic ideology of the late twentieth century has been the seeming similarity of beauty to certain kinds of kitsch. Beauty has also been associated with flawlessness and with glamour. I will content that the flawless and the glamorous are actually categories of kitsch, and that the dominance of these images in marketing has contributed to our societal tendency to confuse them with beauty. The quests for flawlessness and glamour are (...) both self-sabotaging, a premise on which the marketing of beauty depends. These false paradigms of beauty have ob cured the fact that human beauty manifests an ideal of balance and health that is neither self-conscious nor a consequence of deliberate effort. I will defend the relevance of this ideal to beauty to our personal and cultural well-being. (shrink)

Most work on reflexivity has focused on individuals exercising their reflexivity through discourse. However, agents have three major aspects (intentionality, causal efficacy and embodiment) and they are fundamentally social. This article examines the possibility of collective reflexivity conducted not just by saying, but also by doing—that is, through their embodiment. By expanding the concept of ‘performatives’ to encompass not just speech acts but also acts that speak (i.e. embodied activities as socially meaningful) and applying the work of Charles S. Peirce (...) in order to develop an ontology of embodied reflexivity, it becomes possible to determine several criteria defining embodied collective reflexivity. Assessing possibilities such as legislative debate, political demonstrations, religious ritual and dramatic performance reveals that a certain set of practices does in fact meet those criteria and discloses additional aspects of what constitutes embodied collective reflexivity. (shrink)

Other people's music -- Musical animals -- What's involved in sounding human? -- Cross-cultural understanding -- The music of language -- Musical synesthesia -- A song in your heart -- Comfort and joy -- Beyond ethnocentrism.

Medical Officers serving with their national contingents in peacekeeping operations are faced with difficult ethical decisions in regard to their obligations to the local civilian population. Such populations may be under-resourced in regard to medical care, and vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Though the medical officer may support the local medical services, he/she should never undermine these resources. Adopting a human rights approach and observing the requirements of ethical medicine, aids the doctor in prioritising his/her duties. At times there may (...) be conflict with one’s own military superiors. It is wise to discuss potential difficulties prior to setting out on the mission. Human rights abuses cannot be ignored. The medical officer has a duty to do his/her best to report their observations so as to prevent abuse or to bring it to an end. (shrink)

This paper aims at presenting a horizontal approach to the design of communication for joint action in human-robot interaction. According to this approach, social robotics must focus on different parameters of the whole joint action including context, the embedded situation and human psychological profile during the design and test process. Such an approach aims at complementing the standard building-block model that represents the state-of-the-art in robotic communication. Moreover, we provide some general ideas of how the model can facilitate the use (...) of available communicative strategies for creating more efficient culturally sustainable robots in contexts of joint action. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 347-350 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Sin of Knowledge: Ancient Themes and Modern Variations, The Sin of Knowledge: Ancient Themes and Modern Variations, by Theodore Ziolkowski; xvi & 222 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, $29.95. After thirty-five years of teaching and administrating at Princeton University, dozens of books, and innumerable articles, the eminent Germanist Theodore Ziolkowski has turned his attention to a (...) theme appropriate for someone so immersed in the intellectual life: the sorrow and grief that accompany human knowledge. Although Ziolkowski has made great contributions in standard studies of genre (notably the elegy and the twentieth-century novel) and authors (Mann, Hesse, and Broch), he became especially well known for his theorization and implementation of thematic studies, ranging from the sublime--fictionalizations of the life of Jesus--to the humorous--talking animals in literature. The figures whom Ziolkowski has selected for analysis of the sin of knowledge are Adam, Prometheus, and Faust, each of whom he views through both an ancient and a modern lens.All three of these mythic heroes violate "divine prohibitions against the new knowledge" (p. 69). Less heroically, all of these myths treat women misogynistically. Generally, Ziolkowski sees each of these stories as having emerged in a time of crisis, when new opportunities presented humanity with knowledge both alluring and disruptive. Because these are highly elastic myths, able to provide meaning in a variety of contexts, they have all mutated in modern times. Adam's Fall comes to represent the human transition from innocence to consciousness, Prometheus becomes a symbol for socialism's promise, and Faust turns into a representative of the American way of life.Looking at the ancient legend of Adam, Ziolkowski notes that sexuality and wisdom are linked in many of the oldest texts in humanity's recorded history. The emphasis on knowledge, however, is especially strong in the Hebrew myth. While many Near Eastern traditions have stories with similarities to the Biblical account of Adam and Eve, only Hebrew mythology has the Tree of Knowledge. For Ziolkowski, the fact that this story was probably set down during the reign of King Solomon explains this emphasis on knowledge. Because the Age of Solomon was a time of unparalleled wealth and power for the Hebrews, [End Page 347] Ziolkowski argues that the tale of Adam and Eve is the kind of myth "produced by cultures that have reached a certain level of sophistication... and look back with a degree of nostalgia at an imagined simpler, happier existence" (p. 23). According to Ziolkowski, knowledge becomes a sin for the Hebrews as they come to terms with the limitations of everything that their knowledge has brought them even at the height of their power and glory.In the modern era, Ziolkowski continues, the story of Adam has become secularized, representing the transition of humanity from a state of innocence to one of consciousness. He finds references to the Fall in Voltaire's Candide, Kleist's The Broken Pitcher, E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Golden Pot, Melville's Billy Budd, and Hesse's Demian. The overall trend of these representations of the rise of consciousness has been increasingly negative, culminating in sentiments like those expressed by the East German author Günter Kunter, who argues that "our whole present misery and all the problems of industrial civilization" can be linked to "the moment when man used the first firestone as a tool, the Fall" (p. 107). As Ziolkowski concludes: "Two centuries of secularization have brought the modern Adam to a depressing end" (p. 108).Citing Nietzsche, who compared Prometheus to Adam (and Pandora to Eve), Ziolkowski looks first at Hesiod's depiction of Prometheus as a trickster and then to Aeschylus' hero. Unlike the authors of the story of Adam and Eve, though, Aeschylus depicts Prometheus' claim to divine knowledge in a positive light: "Rather than a humankind declining from a glorious golden age to the present deplorable iron age, Aeschylus sees humanity progressing by means of knowledge--the crafts, arts, and sciences--from blindness and ignorance... (shrink)

Scientists depend on complex computational systems that are often ineliminably opaque, to the detriment of our ability to give scientific explanations and detect artifacts. Some philosophers have s...

From oral culture, through the advent of literacy, to the introduction of printing, to the development of electronic media, communication structures have radically altered culture in profound ways. As the first book to take a critical realist approach to culture, Theatre, Communication, Critical Realism examines theatre and its history through the interaction of society’s structures, agents, and discourses. Tobin Nellhaus shows that communication structure—a culture’s use and development of speech, handwriting, printing, and electronics—explains much about why, when, and how (...) theatre has transformed. (shrink)

Offering the perspectives of some of the most respected thinkers in transpersonal psychology and consciousness studies, this book explores the farther reaches ...

Within the context of health and social care education, attempts to define ‘scholarship’ have increasingly transcended traditional academic conceptions of the term. While acknowledging that many applied disciplines call for a kind of ‘actionable knowledge’ that is also not separate from its ethical dimensions, engagement in the caring professions in particular provides an interesting exemplar that raises questions about the nature and practice of ‘actionable knowledge’: how is such knowledge from different domains integrated and sustained? This paper is theoretical and (...) wishes to outline some philosophical ideas that may be important when considering the characteristics of the kind of scholarship for caring practices that draw on deep resources for creativity and integration. Firstly, there is an attempt to clarify the nature of scholarly practice by drawing on Aristotle’s notion of ‘phronesis’ . Secondly, a more meditative approach to the integration of knowledge, action and ethics is highlighted. Finally, its implications for scholarship are introduced, in which scholarly integration may best be served by more contemplative ways of being and thinking. Drawing on Heidegger and Gendlin, we consider the challenges of contemplative thinking for pursuing scholarly practice. We articulate contemplative thinking as an unspecialized mode of being that is given to human beings as an intimate source of creativity. The sense in which unspecialization can be cultivated and practised is discussed. (shrink)

A popular approach to defining fictive utterance says that, necessarily, it is intended to produce imagining. I shall argue that this is not falsified by the fact that some fictive utterances are intended to be believed, or are non-accidentally true. That this is so becomes apparent given a proper understanding of the relation of what one imagines to one's belief set. In light of this understanding, I shall then argue that being intended to produce imagining is sufficient for fictive utterance (...) as well. (shrink)

This volume examines the motives behind rejections of beauty often found within contemporary art practice, where much critically acclaimed art is deliberately ugly and alienating. It reflects on the nature and value of beauty, asking whether beauty still has a future in art and what role it can play in our lives generally. The volume discusses the possible “end of art,” what art is, and the relation between art and beauty beyond their historically Western horizons to include perspectives from Asia. (...) The individual chapters address a number of interrelated issues, including: art, beauty and the sacred; beauty as a source of joy and consolation; beauty as a bridge between the natural and the human; beauty and the human form; the role of curatorial practice in defining art; order and creativity; and the distinction between art and craft. The volume offers a valuable addition to cross-cultural dialogue and, in particular, to the sparse literature on art and beauty in comparative context. It demonstrates the relevance of the rich tradition of Asian aesthetics and the vibrant practices of contemporary art in Asia to Western discussions about the future of art and the role of beauty. (shrink)

The concept of a relational self has been prominent in feminism, communitarianism, narrative self theories, and social network theories, and has been important to theorizing about practical dimensions of selfhood. However, it has been largely ignored in traditional philosophical theories of personal identity, which have been dominated by psychological and animal theories of the self. This book offers a systematic treatment of the notion of the self as constituted by social, cultural, political, and biological relations. The author's account incorporates practical (...) concerns and addresses how a relational self has agency, autonomy, responsibility, and continuity through time in the face of change and impairments. This cumulative network model of the self incorporates concepts from work in the American pragmatist and naturalist tradition. The ultimate aim of the book is to bridge traditions that are often disconnected from one another--feminism, personal identity theory, and pragmatism--to develop a unified theory of the self. (shrink)

This entry considers the question “What is objectification?” After preliminary remarks about different methodological approaches, several possible answers, or groups of answers, are introduced, separated out in terms of broad themes. Each is situated in relation to historical and more contemporary authors. These themes are: objectification as instrumentalization; objectification as reduction to the body; objectification as negation of subjectivity or agency; objectification as naturalization. Objectification is considered in relation to both sexual and racial contexts. Finally, these themes are discussed in (...) relation to the wider category of “mind suppression,” and its relation to objectification in the familiar context of imagery. (shrink)

The tremendous recent growth of the women's movement as a political force has been accompanied by an event of equal import to the academic world--the development of the discipline of women's studies. Colleges across the nation are establishing programs in this area. Women's Studies is a classroom anthology designed for use in these newly-introduced courses.

Medical Professionals: Conflicts and Quandaries in Medical Practice offers a fresh approach to understanding the role-related conflicts and quandaries that pervade contemporary medical practice. While a focus on professional conflicts is not new in the literature, what is missing is a volume that delves into medical professionals' own experience of the conflicts and quandaries they face, often as a result of inhabiting multiple roles. The volume explores the ways in which these conflicts and quandaries are exacerbated by broader societal forces, (...) including changing scientific and technological paradigms, commercialization, and strengthened consumer movements, which simultaneously expand the scope of roles and responsibilities that medical professionals are expected to fulfill, and make it more difficult to do so. Several empirical chapters analyze data from qualitative interview studies with clinicians and other stakeholders. The studies highlight the burdens on clinicians who are expected to make informed and justified judgments and decisions in the midst of competing pressures; authors describe the methods that clinicians use to address the associated tensions within specific contexts. Two conceptual chapters follow and offer some innovative ways to think about the challenges facing medical professionals as they strive to make sense of the changing landscape within healthcare. The first reflects on the challenges to clinical practice in the midst of shifting and often competing definitions of disease and associated ideologies of care. The second reflects more broadly on the utility of value pluralism as a framework for conceptualizing and working through moral and professional quandaries. The book concludes with a chapter containing suggestions for how members of the medical profession might reframe their thinking about their roles, responsibilities, and decision-making in the midst of inevitable quandaries such as those presented here. This book will be of vital reading for academics, researchers, educators, postgraduate students, and interested health care practitioners and administrators. (shrink)

The primacy of practice in the development of knowledge is one of materialism’s fundamental tenets. Most arguments supporting it have been strictly philosophical. However, over the past thirty years cognitive science has provided mounting evidence supporting the primacy of practice. Particularly striking is its finding that thought is fundamentally metaphoric—that images emerging from everyday embodied activities not only make ordinary experiences intelligible, but also underpin our more abstract engagements with the world, elaborated in disciplines such as ethics and science. Cognitive (...) science’s implications must now be absorbed into critical realism. Cognitive science bolsters critical realism by providing a scientifically-grounded analysis of the passage from body to mind and the fundamental unity between them, while sustaining their distinctiveness. Its implications for critical realism ripple out in four waves: first, critical realism’s understanding of the mind/body relationship; second, its concepts of the process that connects theory and practice, and what that means for critical realism’s view of intellectual production, the place of metaphor in scientific theorization, and cultural development; its view of culture as a complexwhole; and finally, its theory of human agency as embodied and intentional. (shrink)